Myles Moran
04-10-2020, 2:15 PM
I'm looking to build a butterfly leaf table. After a bunch of laying out different setups with my wife using a mix of the ground, our current table, and a folding plastic table, we have decided on a 4'x4' square table as the closed size, and we'd like 2 18" butterfly leaves to take it to a 7'x4' table. We want the legs to move with the outside sections of the table, otherwise the legs will be awkward for people when we have leaves in.
I've started looking at slides, and I'm not sure what I'll need. My initial thought was I'd want equalizing slides with the proper camber for the outside legs. This way the center section would stay centered and I can design the butterfly leaf supports/pivots so that with one flipped up it can be centered on top of the other by sliding on the pivot. But once I started thinking about it more, I wasn't sure if I could use standard slides and assume that with one section flipped the center section of the slides will slide as needed to allow one leaf to be in the up position without damaging the mounting hardware of the leaves. If that is possible, I think I'd prefer to use standard slides because the price point is a little better.
The second question is at what point should I consider a 5th leg. I've never seen one before I saw my inlaws table (it extends from 3.5'x4' to 3.5'x12' or so) and once I started looking at table sldies. I would think that the size I'm looking at would be okay with the 4 legs, but I'd rather ask than find out when its all build that I should have put a 5th leg on it.
I've started looking at slides, and I'm not sure what I'll need. My initial thought was I'd want equalizing slides with the proper camber for the outside legs. This way the center section would stay centered and I can design the butterfly leaf supports/pivots so that with one flipped up it can be centered on top of the other by sliding on the pivot. But once I started thinking about it more, I wasn't sure if I could use standard slides and assume that with one section flipped the center section of the slides will slide as needed to allow one leaf to be in the up position without damaging the mounting hardware of the leaves. If that is possible, I think I'd prefer to use standard slides because the price point is a little better.
The second question is at what point should I consider a 5th leg. I've never seen one before I saw my inlaws table (it extends from 3.5'x4' to 3.5'x12' or so) and once I started looking at table sldies. I would think that the size I'm looking at would be okay with the 4 legs, but I'd rather ask than find out when its all build that I should have put a 5th leg on it.